Tag: grown up

Just the other night I was “reminiscing” with friends about parties we went to and different events we somehow managed to crash and it felt like it was a LIFETIME ago.

No, it definitely does not feel like ten years.

People will ask me from time to time if I miss drinking and I’m like… “LOL YES?? I’m a fucking alcoholic….”

To me, being an alcoholic means admitting that I am powerless over drugs and alcohol. It means that I have a serious problem with moderation. It means that I cannot remember a time I drank that didn’t involve me getting sick, fighting or both.

For me, personally, it is not a daily struggle. Anymore. The first 3 years were the hardest and then it kind of became second nature.

I’m not going to lie and say there haven’t been triggering moments where I’m craving, wanting or even NEEDING a drink (a whole bottle, I never did “a drink”..) because those moments happened when I least expected them since day one.

It was more frequent in the beginning – like, everything triggered me wanting a drink.

Car won’t start? DRINK

Late for work? DRINK

Got yelled at? DRINK

Bills are late? DRINK

Short on cash? DRINK

Lonely as hell? DRINK

Someone said/did something you didn’t like? DRINK

And then it was just petty shit…

Woke up? DRINK

Went to work? DRINK

It’s the weekend? DRINK

Bored? DRINK

Saw booze? DRINK

STLL ALIVE? DRIIIINK

LIFE SUCKS ASS?? DRRRRIIIIINNK DAMNIT!!!

Somehow I made it through most of all that unscathed and I lived to tell the tale.

The hardest part of my recovery is the loneliness. I almost wrote “crippling loneliness” but it’s definitely not crippling, I’m just dramatic. It’s a very lonely world when you are not completely submerged in “the fellowship” – which in my experience is mostly a cult but maybe I haven’t found the right one……?

It’s hard for people to relate and they think you’re some boring ass-hat who doesn’t like to have fun. It’s like NO! I’m the epitome of fun! I know how to party, believe me!! I’ve been court ordered to rehab… TWICE! They don’t do that for people who DONT know how to party! Please be my friend! LET ME LOVE YOU!!!

Beyond the loneliness factor – I do have a SOLID group of friends who I wouldn’t trade for the fucking world. These are friends who keep me on my toes, engaged with the world and they love and respect me.

These past ten years have been so incredible. Mostly because I can remember most of it! I hate remembering it all but at the same time I don’t. It’s win/lose, you know?

Lose because the bad sticks with me forever until I have enough therapy sessions to let it dissolve and float away.

WIN because I have DONE and SEEN and EXPERIENCED some amazing shit in these past ten years. Things I never could have dreamt of, things that were never a possibility when I was active in my addiction.

Well, here I am… doing all that feelin’ shit.

Lol why are my neighbors screaming? Like, I know they are from Virginia but it’s NOT the first time it’s snowed and they are on the front steps yelling… athe snow. They do drugs. It’s fine, they smoke weed and I can’t judge them because they are older and they’ve lived their lives so if they want to get stoned on a Sunday afternoon and yell at the snow who am I to say shit?? But my WALL neighbors (the ones I share a wall with) are annoying as hell. Mostly the girlfriend that just moved in last year. The guy isn’t so bad and he’s hot but her voice echoes through these walls and penetrate your eardrum like a needle poking through a thick cloth. I want to slap her. I’m going to sleep with her man. Whatever. I’m a bad bitch.

ANYWAY – here is a journal entry I found from 2009 shortly after I sobered up:

“Leah and Mandi are drunk now, talking to these men as we sit under an umbrella in an already enclosed patio space. As I stare into the skeletal structure of this massive umbrella, the crisp static of conversations around me barely making its own at into my thoughts, I’m wondering how such an ill conceived idea as umbrella-d tables in a covered smoking patio came to be when I noticed a hand caressing my knee.

Not in a sexual advance kind of way, more of a friendly way, but he was no friend. Not even someone I could call an acquaintance. Just some tired old guy in a tired old gay bar trying to regain my attention.

The night was just a bunch of brief encounters full of compliments, insults & derogatory remarks (mostly from Leah and the man who eerily resembled Chris Frank).

I don’t know how we managed to break ties with these guys we were smoking with but I do remember Leah’s booming laughter trailed by “there’s too much estrogen here, let’s go to Pi”…

I chuckled nervously, she always knew what NOT to say. I look at my nails judging. They’re too square and I hate that. I always ask for round and for some reason they always make them square. I hate square. Square nails are gaudy. Square nails are for women without class, tact or grace. I don’t want to be at the bar anymore.

When I was younger I thought that sitting in a bar with a cigarette lit in one hand and a drink in another was the epitome of greatness.

In reality it was as me sitting slouched over a mug of rail vodka & dry ass cranberry juice listening to bad remixes of already bad songs… standing outside to smoke a cigarette while fat sweaty men hang all over their fat sweaty girlfriends.

I went to bars to drink away my problems at home. I drank at home to forget who I was.

I started drinking to be cool and have fun. I quit because I wasn’t cool and I wasn’t having fun.

I don’t know where I’m going, I barely know where I’m coming from. But… finally, I feel like I’m beginning to know who I am.”

And that’s that. I’m going to buy a pack of smokes and enjoy this beautiful snowy day.

Tonight has become one of those nights where I can’t decide what I want to do.

Do I want to sit on the couch with my cat, Elton, and surround myself with a mountain of sugary and salty treats. Just veg out in front of tv with my junk food feast and eat until my stomach is near exploding until 11pm…

Or do I grab my bag of “returnables” [goods purchased during my most recent Target Blackout trip that I don’t necessarily need or want so I’ll be returning] and head up to Target?

See, heading to Target sounds appealing to me but knowing how I get during my “moods” I’m afraid I’ll just have yet another black out trip and, well, repeat the same mistake I made on Monday.

In all reality I know what is going to happen… I am going to continue to lay here in bed, completely overwhelmed by my hectic day, the gross pile of laundry waiting to be washed and the fluffy tendrils of cat hair floating through my house… I’ll play online reading blogs, stalk people on Instagram, Google search “kittens wrestling” videos and maybe fade in and out of a sleep like state. My boyfriend will unsuccessfully try to peel me out if bed and after I shame him for caring about my well being I’ll chain smoke 3 cigarettes. After that I will most likely hop into the shower and just stand in the lukewarm water [we turned the water heater temp down… brrrrrrrr] and think of ridiculous alternate endings to different conversations I might have had today. I will finally stuff my face with maybe two bowls of cereal and head back to bed.

Tomorrow I will wake up exactly 13 minutes before I have to leave home to make it to work on time and whine the whole ride in about how I didn’t have time to stop for coffee.

I will stumble into work and sing “gooooood mooooorning to my coworkers and supervisors and fellow managers and plan my day around call volume.

Secretly I will be googling more kitten images and periodically I will sneak peaks and giggle silently to myself at the adorable little fuzz butts….